Kingfisher fliers see bad times

Passengers who had booked for flight tickets in Kingfisher Airlines are a harried lot.

Take, for instance, Sumit Jain, a PR professional, who had booked for flight tickets to Guwahati via Kolkota for November 15. When news spread like wildfire that Kingfisher Airlines is in a bad shape, he was worried. He immediately called them to check his flight status. The airlines staff informed Jain that he will be put on a different flight on the same day. Jain was furious. Had he not called the airlines, he might have missed the flight and lost the fare.

“When I asked them why I was not informed of the change in schedule, they told me that they have orders to inform the passengers 24 hours in advance in case of changes or cancellation,” he said.

Jain had bought the tickets a few months earlier so that he does not have to pay extra charges. “In case the flight is cancelled, I would have to pay three times more to book another flight,” he said.

Several others shared Jain’s sentiments. With cancellation of more than 40 flights and 160 scheduled flights not operating since Monday, passengers certainly are getting worried since they would lose out on both time and money, not to mention the emotional trauma they are going through.

With the stocks of the airline plunging down to an all-time low of 19.1% in early trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange to a record low before recovering to 9.45%, nobody wants to take the risk of booking tickets in Kingfisher Airlines.

When DNA contacted Kingfisher spokesperson, Bhattacharya, he was unavailable for comment.